Yes Dear, I'm down here working on your craft room!! - Page 22

Ill get more pics as soon as I get a little more time with the camera..


The boys and I wanted to see "300", the wife wanted to watch "Avatar", so we were out voted 1 to 3.... Avatar it was...

Thanks for the comments guys, its much appreciated.

I actually enjoyed Avatar more than 300, the visuals were superior. I also enjoyed it far more this time around than when we saw in the multiplex.


Welcome Rock, actually it was only about 10% skill, 60% time and 80% money... wait... thats 150%... still seems right though. Like RT said, start a thread and you'll get all the advice/help you need from the forum.


I know it's continuously echoed on the forum, but I would like to reinforce the importance of soundproofing, based on my personal experience, for people just beginning their journey.

Like many I spent 10's of thousands of $$$ on equip over the decades and inevitability was disappointed once things were home and set up. When I started my theater, I dont think I had ever been in a room that had been purposed built for either music or video. (even the demo rooms at your local equip dealer don't stack up) After finding AVS and reading the input from the pro's and the experiences of others, I basically took a leap of faith, and did as much as I could for sound proofing.

Over the last couple of weeks, I've been able to experience the difference it makes, I never realized what I was missing before, I had never heard alot of the nuances that are present in both both music and movies.

Roughly I figure the total cost for lumber/dwall/ Green Glue was ~ < 5k to build a room within a room with 2 dampening layers (OSB,GG,Dwall,GG). So say roughly a 3500 bump over costs for building a standard framed room.

This 3500 "investment" did more for the quality of the reproduction than any piece of equipment I had ever bought. Combine this with professionally designed room layout and treatments (available at ~ $600), and you have a winning combo, at a price point far less than even a mid range system. So keep your HTIB for now and put you money in the room... you'll be amazed.



Thanks Mike. I saw exactly what your seeing when I posted the pic. not sure why it looks that way, I think it was because of the way I vacuumed it or something.

I had spent a lot of time finding the "right" black with the same/similar cut as the center insert. Here's a close up of that same area



I think the guys did a heck of a job, especially considering the pile of the carpet.

I cut a template from a piece of luaun that they used to cut one part of the radii(dont remember if he cut the black or burgandy first) then he overlayed this to cut the matching piece, and repeated for each corner.

you should have seen him roll his eyes when I told him what I wanted originally....



Thank you Ted, and I greatly appreciate the assistance from you and John over the last couple of years....

Thanks Guys, Im waiting on another lens and trying to figure out the camera to get some better room shots.

The QSC DSP322ua showed up on Friday and I installed it in the rack.

For Christmas, Im giving myself a visit from one of DE's guys. He will visit for a couple of days next week to EQ everything, set the room curves,etc.. I was really torn about jumping off of the DIY bandwagon on this, and although I enjoy the tweaking and fiddling, he will accomplish in 2 days what would have taken me several months with lesser results. After nearly 3 years I really want to start enjoying the theater to its fullest.


I'm really not done done, but close enough to meet my commitment to the family for "Movies by Christmas".

Several large items on the to-do list:
I have plenty of room to move the seats forward or backwards, once we start tuning the room, the placement can be selected based on the best response.

Once the seat placement is finalized Ill be able to see exactly how much room I have to the rear wall and then I can decide on a small riser and a couple more seats or a bar and bar stools, or nothing..etc. My concern has always been the seats for "us" and I was never trying to squeeze in alot of seating for overflow.

I still have the front of the hush box and the ceiling to complete. Ill build the ceiling feature finished in sections and then just carry into the room and mount completed without disrupting anything in the room. I have power ran there already and Im toying with the idea of an led/fiber combo for a star ceiling insert. similar to Isky star ceiling panels, or I may just build something unique.

I also just ordered my perimeter seals and automatic door bottom for the entry.


I did take pictures of one of the room features that Im very happy with:


The entrance to the Equipment room...



my kids think the hidden door is really cool..

Tony / DavidK...

I have a whole basement left to finish, including a bar that I plan to build in a similar "ornate/wood" style as the theater, and the kids are already pushing for the bathroom so they dont have to go upstairs when their in the basement. (Am I the only one that pees in the sump pit here? ) If people are interested Ill keep the thread going.

Over the last year I've thought about what I would have done different on a regular basis. Ill write something up soon, I think your right people can benefit from our collective experiences.

Torrmar...

Welcome to the neighborhood, I'm ~ 20 min up I69 from Fishers. Took a peek at your build thread, you'll have a very nice space to work with. Along the lines of "what I would do differently", I would honestly recommend that you not drive a nail or purchase a single piece of equipment until you have a "Complete" start to finish "detailed" plan for your theater. This single piece of advice would have saved me a significant amount of both time and money.

Dave...

I'm oddly excited about Adam coming to tune everything.. not to mention it got me out of going to the in laws for Christmas.


Yup.. I fell off track a little.. mostly due to the lack of a plan initially and just rolling with it..that and the beer..

I'll be watching very closely.. my curiosity continues to build the more I play with the system and ARC-1 has me a little baffled with what it does.

I've ran ARC several times in its standard mode, The standard mode makes all decisions for you, your only task is moving the mic to a min of 5 positions separated by at least 2 feet..the ARC averages these points to make its "Decision" accordingly.

I've repeated this with the 5 points centralized around the 2 center seats and with them spread around the entire seating area, at listening position and in front then behind.. all of these positioning scenarios appear to have little impact on the settings ARC wants to make... I'm guessing its because of the averaging. just for kicks I was going to run it with the Mic at the same position (my seat) for the 5 tests to see how it impacts the automagic settings.

I honestly dont care for the results from ARC so far, and prefer the basic set up that I had originally put in the processor. ARC also didn't seem to play well when using both sub outputs for the IB.. and I ended up running one output to the EP and changed the dip switches from stereo to parallel mode, until I can get a "Y" XLR to feed the 2 channels in the BFD from a single output.

I've only started playing with the advanced mode in ARC the last couple of days. In the advanced mode you can force the room gain, cross overs, response cutoff etc..

This is all for Nil at this point, with Adam coming but it is good clean fun..

If I get ambitious this weekend I may run REW and we'll be able to compare the differences in the results from ARC and and what Adam does with the DSP.

On a side note.. i can say i have not seen any movement in the screen from the IB's but as you mentioned previously you can see a "little" in the 701 around the screen.. probably just the difference in tension of the material.